2012 London Olympics

[moonman239]

Are you guys watching?

[4x2y]

Yes, great event.

[techgnome]

Bits and pieces. Usually stuff I watch isn't the popular stuff and so is hard to find being broadcasted. Fencing, badminton, beer pong, dwarf tossing....

-tg

[moonman239]

Did anyone catch the opening ceremony?

I think the highlights last night were:

1) The lighting of the torch. David Beckham drove a boat to some point near the stadium and lit the torch, which some guy then took to the stadium.
2) The lighting of the cauldron.
3) The Queen's arrival on a parachute. I'm sure I'm not the only person who thought this was fake.
4) A performance of "Chariots of Fire." Rowan Atkinson, who plays Johnny English and Mr. Bean, was there hitting a piano key. He used an umbrella to hit the key so he could reach over and grab a tissue. Then they played a segment of the movie "Chariots of Fire" with him in it. (They shot video footage of him and digitally replaced someone's head with his.)

[4x2y]

Mr. Bean was good and the first comedy show in Olympics opening ceremony i ever watched.

[Shaggy Hiker]

So far I have seen the US beat Germany in mens volleyball. That's it. Aside from that I just listen to the updates. Not having a TV has something to do with it, and being otherwise occupied has even more to do with it. That volleyball game I watched because it was on when I went out to eat on Tuesday.


EDIT: Just for clarification: I realized that my post might lead one to believe that I have a life. One would be wrong.

[EntityX]

Here's a video of a Senegal soccer player kicking a Mexican soccer player. It says, "In the 82nd minute, Pape Souare (SEN) jumps ups to kick the ball in the air and kicks the face of Hector Herrera (MEX) in the process. Souare is given a yellow card in Senegal's 4-2 extra time loss. "

To me it looks obvious that the Senegal player had no intention to kick the ball but only to kick the Mexican player.

Senegal Defender Lands Flying Kick To Face Of Mexican Player

I've been watching the Olympics some right now. I sometimes have a tv and sometimes don't or else I put my tv in storage but right now I am watching tv. I've been enjoying the beach volley ball and have been watching the swimming and water polo which is rather interesting.

[Siddharth Rout]

EDIT: Just for clarification: I realized that my post might lead one to believe that I have a life. One would be wrong.

What's a life and can I have one too? Is it free or do I have to register for it somewhere? If it is not free then do they accept Paypal? Why did Paypal get the name Paypal? PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries; So you don't have a TV or is it that you don't have an analogue TV? Is volleyball better off watching in analogue TV or Digital TV? Do you know about Carnivorous volleyball? You either win or get eaten. What would you do if you were in the winning team and your teammate gave you a COLD SHOULDER? Would you consider that hostile or would you simply shut up and eat it? Some teammates say "Volleyball is my life, everything else is just details". So what is life?

[EntityX]

I predict that the US will win gold and silver in women's beach volley ball. Both US women's teams reached the gold medal match for beach volley ball. Rather unusual. It's just a question of which team gets gold and which silver.

I enjoy watching beach volley ball more than the indoor volley ball for some reason. The beach volley ball teams are 2 players per side whereas the indoor volley ball teams are 6 players per side.

[EntityX]

I watched the second half of the men's olympic basketball gold medal match. Rather close. The US was only 1 point up at the half and 1 point up at the start of the 3rd quarter. They pulled ahead in the last quarter winning by 7 points.

Here's a record of how all the US Men's Olympic basketball teams have done in all the Olympics.

United States Men's Olympic Basketball
Team Index

Since 1936 they've failed to get the gold medal only 3 times. 1972 silver, 1988 bronze and 2004 bronze. The teams from 1992 and after used pro NBA players.

The Soviet Union won gold in 72 and 88 and Argentina won gold in 2004.

[EntityX]

I was looking at this list of all the medals given at the Olympics.

Summer Games Medals

I noticed that the Bahamas got a gold medal in the Track & Field Men's 4 x 400m Relay. I did a search on the Bahamas to get its population. Only 353,000. That's surprising that with only that small of a population they were able to put together a team that beat all the other teams in the world. If it was only a one man event then it would be less surprising but a 4 man team winning is rather surprising. I was also surprised to read this from the wikipedia article on the Bahamas.

The Bahamas i/bəˈhɑːməz/, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is a country consisting of more than 3,000 islands, cays, and islets.

I didn't realize there were that many islands.

[Hack]

Actually there are only two islands in The Bahamas. In addition, there 500 islets and 2,498 cays

[EntityX]

The wikipedia article should have been better worded at the start. This is from another part of the same article.

In 1864, the Governor of the Bahamas reported that there were 29 islands, 661 cays, and 2,387 rocks in the colony.

The closest island to the United States is Bimini, which is also known as the gateway to The Bahamas. The island of Abaco is to the east of Grand Bahama. The southeasternmost island is Inagua. The largest island is Andros Island. Other inhabited islands include Eleuthera, Cat Island, Long Island, San Salvador Island, Acklins, Crooked Island, Exuma and Mayaguana. Nassau, capital city of The Bahamas, lies on the island of New Providence.

There's more than 2 islands but not as many as might be suggested by the first sentence of the article.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Who the heck counted all the rocks?

[FunkyDexter]

Am I alone in thinking it would be cool to bring back the philosophy and poetry type events into the olympics. These were an important part of the Ancient Greek games, equally as important as the athletics. I don't think you could bring them back to that same level of importance but having some representation of them could be rather cool. Especially the philosophy given how far our scientific knowledge has increased in the last couple of millenia. Obviously the judging would have to be subjective but events like the gymnastics, ice skating and synchronised swimming already have subjective judging so that shouldn't be to much of an obstacle.

Professor Brian Cox FTW!

[NeedSomeAnswers]

Am I alone in thinking it would be cool to bring back the philosophy and poetry type events into the olympics.

Yes !!!